Hidden Faces
by FluffyGonzalez
Summary: No one in Death Note is ever who they appear to be. Wasn't Light Yagami proof enough of that?
1. Mask of Ashes

Hidden Faces – a Death Note fanfic

He walked leisurely through the darkening streets, the decay of humanity around him. The sunset was hidden behind the skyscrapers, symbolic, he thought, of the fall of Man, covered up by progress. He smiled in the dark, a winning smile that bespoke innocence and virtue. No one was around to see him. Perhaps it was best that way.

The police, he had often mused, were slightly less effective than they needed to be. Criminals were sentenced as revenge for their crimes instead of as a preventative measure. Kira had the right idea – once you realized you could steal, you were bound to do it again, but kill the thief and his dishonest hands were stilled.

As car passed by, waking him from his reverie. Its tires threw up a wall of water from a puddle nearby, and it nearly soaked him. He wrapped his coat around himself as he arrived at another deserted crosswalk. Recognizing the sign, he turned right and made his way to the headquarters. They were expecting him.

The police force was fraught with hypocrisy in addition to being clueless. He hadn't told anyone when Aizawa had started having an affair, but that had worked itself out when Kira killed that snake of a woman. He had watched, silently, as Ide embezzled from the police force. Mogi – he chuckled – put on his emotionless persona and carried out his duties without question. No one asked what happened when he went home and drunk himself into a stupor. The only decent people on the task force were the Chief and Ukita, but Ukita went and got himself killed and the Chief had sacrificed himself to take down Mello. All they had left were cowards who would not be able to catch Kira if their lives depended on it, which they did. They put on false faces and strove for a goal they wanted to reach without sacrifice.

The man entered the hotel room, hanging his trench coat on the rack next to the door.

"Matsuda, come look at this," called Light from his computer terminal.

Matsuda walked over to the screen, assuming his expected expression of clueless goodwill. All Light had to show him was more useless information, information that he hoped would lead the team away from the truth. Of course Light Yagami was Kira. Matsuda had guessed the instant the arrogant narcissist had shown up at headquarters. It would have been too easy to expose him, but unlike L, Matsuda didn't want Kira gone. For L, it was a contest, regardless of consequences to humanity. Matsuda wasn't so short-sighted. Those two were only focused on each other, loners who styled themselves the only ones in the world – and had been thrust upon each other. It had been a chess game, the world their playing-field and all of humanity their pawns.

Then L had lost.

Light had been derailed. Life for him wasn't a challenge anymore. Only the thought of his upcoming world domination must have kept him going, but it certainly wasn't _fun_ for him anymore.

Near had come along, and Light had been so sunken into his despair that he didn't treat Near with enough caution. Now he agreed to walk into Near's obvious trap. Whatever Near had prepared would turn Mogi and Aizawa against Light. Light would try to move his right-hand man against Near at the warehouse and find that Near had – what, replaced the notebook or something? That wouldn't be enough. Matsuda would have all of their names afterwards. Then he could take the notebook . . .

L had seen through him at once. Matsuda was grateful that he had played along with the act. He could see L's face now, hear his voice – "Matsuda! More coffee!" Matsuda was invincible now, now that the only person Light respected had mocked him in this manner. Light wouldn't think twice about him up until he wrote the last name in the notebook.

Would Near live up to L's legacy? No. Not a chance. His tactics were not absolute. He was too concerned with trying to be like L. As such, he didn't care about humanity either. Taking down Kira was only his coming-of-age ritual.

Not much depended on Kira's current pair of eyes, the fanatic to whom he trusted the notebook. Light would give him instructions and that would be the end of it. No, what mattered was that Light was walking into a trap and that Near was prepared for Light's countermeasure. His ridiculous devotion to L suggested it. Light couldn't know that Near had nothing on him besides the hunch of a long-dead sociopath. Matsuda had watched carefully; no one was more diligent than Light. Light should have been able to see this coming. But he grew slightly more hysterical each day, his virtuous mask visibly strained at times.

Matsuda would have liked to help him, but Light was totally dedicated to his future conquest. Matsuda would only be killed when he least expected it. No, better to let Near finish him. Then Near would present little challenge to Matsuda's coming wrath. If only Light were less arrogant and self-centered!

The only threat inherent in the current situation was a pre-emptive elimination of the task force. In his deteriorating mental state, Light might make that mistake. Then all would be lost.

* * *

L's plan for dealing with the Yotsuba group would never have worked. He was moving too slowly. L moved cautiously, making sure there was no possibility of failure. They would have solved nothing. No, it was Matsuda's job to shake things up and force L to stay on his toes. The looks they gave him afterwards prompted him to act cowed and penitent, but he rejoiced inside. L finally gave him some well-deserved praise – of course he knew what Matsuda had done. Most importantly, he was removed from the manager position. Forced to put up with Misa any longer, he might have jumped out of an apartment without having to be told.

* * *

Mello had moved as planned. Now he had paid the price for being a pawn in this game. Takada, too, had perished. It was foolish of them to expect anything less. It would be almost certainly correct to assume that the active Kira was impotent, his notebook compromised by Near. Light was finished.

They drove to the warehouse. There was absolute silence until they got there. Light spoke up with a calmness that was clearly false, saying, "It looks like Near and the others have already arrived."

"Yeah," responded Matsuda, allowing equally false nervousness to enter his voice, "this is really it."

Light sent him and Aizawa in first, allegedly to check for recording equipment. The first thing that struck Matsuda was the ridiculous L mask Near was wearing. It took all of his self-control not to burst out laughing. Near was insecure enough in his own plan that he wore a mask while his companions stood there unprotected? What a fool! What a coward! Of course he would claim that it was a psychological attack, but that was only rationalization. Defeating Near after the day's events would be simple.

"Please don't tell Light," Near said. "Let him see for himself. His reaction will be further proof."

The . . . _child_ could have come up with something better. Matsuda certainly could. When they went back to report, he almost gave away the secret just to spite the arrogant brat. Well, both of them. Light didn't seem to notice, submerged as he was in his own head. He was so nervous, and yet so triumphant! He hadn't even found yet that Near had beaten him!

It was this mental paradigm that subdued whatever response he had to the L mask. Matsuda did not have the opportunity to observe L's face because the megalomaniac just _had_ to walk out in front. Near . . . had no right to the image of L. Light and Near stared at each other's impassive masks, the two contesting disciples of L. One, a genius who had surpassed the legendary detective and had fallen far. The other, a wannabe brat who never should have left the protective custody of Wammy's house. Oh, for the glory days of the Kira case! Matsuda felt a shared emotion with Ryuk, laughing in the corner. It had been more interesting when L was alive, transfixing your soul with his unblinking stare and gobbling up a mountain of sugar.

Matsuda's nostalgia turned to rage. How dare this upstart pipsqueak stick his nose into the mission of Kira! Taking care not to act out of character, for Near would pay close attention to him in the months following, he exposed as simply as possible Near's cowardice. Light quickly backed him up. Of course Near wouldn't be able to stand it.

_Yes, kid, show us the depth of your insecurity_, Matsuda thought.

As predicted, Near went on a rant about his intellectual superiority and his willingness to sacrifice all the members of the Kira force to make a one-on-one, blah blah blah yada yada and a cow's left foot. The works. It culminated with a request to wait for people to be manipulated and die. What idiocy! The squirt sat here with L's face and L's posture, ticking off all the loose ends in front of them! He hadn't the decency to come up with a plan that could work quickly, one that didn't involve giving his opponent extra time to think through his response! Matsuda let another barb fly. Near probably twitched under the mask and Light tried to pretend he wasn't laughing.

Eventually, Near was satisfied, and he took off the mask with an idiotic grin. Matsuda realized that, to stay in character, he needed to keep up the raging. He did so, but grudgingly. Near wasn't worthy of such upset.

Near explained how Light had sent orders to the right-hand man ("X-Kira," he called him – did the brat grow up on bad television?), faltering a little at points, and concluded that neither of them could afford changes because of the unforeseen kidnapping. Why didn't he tell them that he had engineered that as well? Perhaps because it would out Light on his guard again.

Near continued explaining his plot. He was like a bad movie villain, unveiling his plan before the heroes so they could shove a wrench in it. But Light was powerless now. Near was just gloating. Soon, the hysterics spread to the rest of the group as they realized they were going to die by this plan. Matsuda continued his act, but internally it confirmed his suspicions about Near's tampering with the notebook. Paranoia from Aizawa. Silence from Ide and Mogi. And from Light, only quiet self-assurance.

Then "X-Kira" arrived and wrote down the names of everyone present. Matsuda began to feel fear. If the notebook were actually intact, then there would be an impasse. Matsuda's name would go down there with the others, and the results would be unfortunate, to say the least.

Matsuda made a harmless attempt at botching the plan by drawing his firearm, but the SPK drew on him. He was stuck. Well, if death came for them all . . . it would all work out in the end.

Ryuk chuckled and kept on chuckling.

Near resumed his monologue, detailing the process that led to Light's defeat.

Light confirmed that the names were written. Time slowed.

Twenty seconds.

Fifteen seconds.

Near piped up again, didn't have the patience to shut his imbecilic mouth. "X-Kira" turned out to be Teru Mikami and he entered the warehouse.

Five seconds.

The world seemed to implode. Light, Kira, was the center of the universe. He smiled, growing taller as he reveled in the power of the Shinigami, and he declared, "Near, victory is mine!" The words rang in the warehouse, every syllable the slam of a coffin lid, every word the chuckle of a Shinigami. It was an absolute statement of fact, and if reality contradicted it, then it was reality that must have read the wrong line . . .

There was an awkward silence.

"We . . . We didn't . . . die . . ." Matsuda breathed, determined not to drop the act even when under this kind of pressure.

Mikami lost it. Light was finished. Near displayed the names, slowly, triumphantly.

_Nate River. I have you now_, Matsuda thought. All he needed was the notebook.

Light realized his defeat. All his hopes, his dreams, crushed by this amateur who could never measure up to L. His ambition curbed by a simple mistake from a subordinate. He went hysterical. His mind must have sprung a proverbial gasket under the pressure. He ran, tripping and sprawling across the floor and scrabbling his way up the wall like a drowning animal and looking fearfully over his shoulder like a hunted one.

"Yagami Light, Kira," said Near, determined to break his soul, "you lost."

He didn't even have the decency to spare him another monologue. Light's eye twitched noticeably.

Near proved his machinations by addressing Ryuk. Ryuk just kept laughing.

"Light Yagami, you are Kira."

He couldn't escape. They had gotten to him.

Light rose from the wall, hunched over and shaking. His perfect composure had broken, and now he stood like a lesser version of L. Matsuda was vividly reminded of the words of Shakespeare: "What a noble mind is here o'erthrown!"

Then Near revealed Mello's part in his victory. Mikami tried to justify his mistake, digging Light's grave a little deeper. Near kept on monologuing, trying to fill the void with more and more superiority. Matsuda wanted to scream at him, "Can't you see he's finished? Do you have no respect for your opponent, for L's opponent? You've won, don't dwell on it any more!"

Of course, he could never say it, and Near wouldn't listen anyways.

Then he decided that, together with Mello, he had surpassed L. Right. Like luck equaled skill. Near had gotten lucky and had known how to manipulate an emotionally unstable fool. He had the benefit of incompetence from the underlings. And from that he deduced, as he sat their monologuing and disrespecting the memory of his mentor, that he had surpassed the legend. For that, Matsuda would make him suffer.

"If you can talk your way out of this, by all means please do."

One last challenge, when both of them knew the game was up.

Light's eye twitched again. Then he exploded.

When going up against mad scientists and other evil villains, the first thing you want to look out for is an eye twitch. This had already happened. But second-most on the watchlist is the maniacal laugh, the hallmark and trademark (copyright Society of Evil Villains, 2010) of evildoers everywhere.

Matsuda watched sadly as Light lost it.

_He's going to go for the piece in his watch_, he thought. _And he's going to kill Near. Then, when they realize what happened, they're going to gun him down with Mikami. After that, they're going to burn the notebooks. And there will be no more L – no even halfway-competent one, at least. And no more Kira, unless I can convince Ryuk to send more notebooks. I will have nothing to build up from._

Light confessed. Matsuda barely remembered to take on a shocked expression as his mind worked madly. No, if Light died here, then Ryuk would leave immediately. Matsuda could not even talk to him without raising suspicion.

Meanwhile, Light started a monologue of his own. His composure was back, but the long-suppressed fire of madness shone brightly in his countenance. His face was set, stubborn, declarative. It was no longer Yagami Light's face. It was the face of Kira. Light revealed all, his mission, the need for Kira, the nature of justice – everything. Then, in a few sentences, he explained the root of evil. It was almost too simple.

Matsuda had to ensure the survival of at least one notebook. Near had probably destroyed the one he had tampered with, leaving the replacement. That left the Shinigami Rem's notebook, which had been brought here.

Light and Near began to argue in melodramatic terms. Some hidden sense of theater rose unbidden inside Matsuda. He pushed it aside.

Light was going to go for the watch. Near was going to die. Light would be shot. Ryuk would leave. The notebooks would be destroyed–

The sequence ran through his mind, repeating endlessly, as he searched for a way to salvage the situation. He needed a way to get the notebook, and, loathe the prospect though he did, he needed to save Nate River.

Near shoved the argument onto the bystanders, asking about their definitions of justice. Matsuda mentally sneered. It wasn't about justice, it was about restraining the darkness of the human soul . . . it was a study of teleology, things done from fear of punishment.

Watch trick used. Death of Near. Light shot. Ryuk left. Note burned. Watch opened. Near dies. Light is shot. Ryuk leaves. Death Note destroyed. Light goes for watch. Wirites Near's name. SPK shoots Light. Shinigami leaves. Notebook destroyed. Notebook destroyed. Notebook destroyed! There must be a solution! The watch! The name! Light, Ryuk, notebook! Watch, Near, Light, Ryuk, notebook! Four clicks, Nate River . . . Wait.

The watch.

_When he starts clicking the watch, I have to stop him. I can't tell them about it now, so I have to wait until he begins writing. I have a very small time frame._

Nate River.

_He won't react. He'll be counting on us. With Light out of the way, he'll survive._

Light is shot.

_I have to be the one to shoot him. I won't make it fatal. That way, he can survive, giving me the opportunity to talk with Ryuk._

Ryuk.

_He'll stay with Light. I can get more notebooks this way, in case these ones are burned._

Notebook is destroyed.

_I can destroy the notebook myself, saying I feel responsible. Then I'll hide it. Kira will live again._

Light began to walk away from the group, trying one last bluff. Aizawa was noticeably affected, but there was no _real_ effect.

"A piece in the watch!" cried one of the SPK. Matsuda, jolted into action, whipped his revolver around and blasted the pen out of Light's hand.

_Sorry, Light, but this way you live, _he thought.

Light collapsed, moaning. His blood mingled with the ink. Then he screamed at Matsuda, who merely bowed his head.

_You did not surpass L either_, he thought.

Light was beyond pity now. No, now it was time to play up the melodrama to throw Near off the scent. So he began to play a rage born of betrayal, bringing up Kira's father and making him squirm even further. Light seethed at him, pure hatred radiating from his once-perfect face.

_Wait. Damn it! I forgot the ownership rules. If they execute him, the Notebook has no owner. Or . . . No! No time to think! I have to kill him!_

Light was still trying to kill Near. Matsuda took advantage of the situation to unload the rest of his clip with a contrived scream. He nearly finished the fallen god, who had been reduced to a quivering heap on the warehouse floor, but the hesitation demanded by Matsuda's façade allowed his compatriots to haul him away.

Even Mikami turned on the once-influential Light. Then the task force decided to arrest him. Matsuda noticed with pride that Aizawa passed over him when proposing the arrest.

Light grasped at straws, ignoring reality, writhing in a pool of his own blood. All of his pawns had been captured. He was powerless.

"S-someone . . . kill these guys . . . " he moaned.

Then he laid eyes on the Shinigami, with his clownish, impassive visage and his unforgiving, laughing eyes. Near couldn't resist another chance to monologue.

When Ryuk decided to write, chuckling, Matsuda knew that they were safe. He was going to write the name of the God of the New World. Light was finished.

So he needed to ensure the survival of the notebook. He opened fire on the Shinigami for the look of the thing, knowing it was useless, while Light crowed about how he had won. He hadn't, of course.

Light Yagami was about to die.

Matsuda needed to establish his guilt early.

"Light-kun . . . " he said sorrowfully, contorting his face into a veneer of regret.

"Are you feeling sorry for him now?" asked Aizawa. Idiot. What did it look like?

Then Light died.

* * *

_Kyrie Eleison_

Later, Matsuda did his best to turn the task force against Near. Near had given him the notebook to destroy, but certainly he had kept the pages that he had taken from the Death Note. Otherwise his childish ploy in the warehouse would have never worked.

Near had allowed Matsuda to burn the notebook. He had used slight-of-hand to replace it with a replica and burned that instead. The notebook was now in a hidden safe in his house.

Matsuda also tried to tell the task force about Near's manipulation of Mello. They were never certain about it. This was the bad side of ensuring no one took any notice of you.

One day (the anniversary of Light's defeat), Ide asked him, "You liked Light, didn't you?"

No. He supported Kira. Light was a fool in his operation. He had managed to beat L because he knew more of the rules. And Near was able to beat him because Near's pawns were more competent. Matsuda had liked Light, but he would have sacrificed Light for the vision of a future utopia. The world had been given a taste of Kira's dominion. Now Kira was on leave.

_Christe Eleison_

Ultimately, they rejected him because they realized they would have died if not for Near. But Near, Nate River, did not care for them. They were pawns. And at that moment in the warehouse, they had been pawns with guns.

Near had made the warehouse into an office. It was another childish sign of victory. Now, whenever people needed to contact him, they would visit the site of his victory over Kira. What an arrogant buffoon.

Matsuda arrived home late that day, placing his briefcase carefully on the edge of the table. His eyes moved automatically to the section of the wall that hid the safe. Undisturbed.

Shuichi Aizawa, Kanzo Mogi, Hideki Ide, Anthony Lester, Stephen Loud, Halle Bullock, Nate River. One day, they would face death, just like Kira. And Kira would rise again, a phoenix from the ashes of the new world.

_Kyrie Eleison_

_

* * *

_

_Remember, if you can type, then you are obligated to write a review. Because otherwise Matsuda will come for you. Think that's funny? JUST YOU WAIT FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER. YOU GET TO STAR IN IT AS THE GUY WHO DOES THE THING AND THEN THAT THING HAPPENS AND THE ... ahem. __I'll be here all week. But seriously, folks, write me lots of reviews. Otherwise the things that bug you will never get fixed. And it will haunt you forever. You won't be able to sleep for weeks. So just write the review. Fun fact: you're supposed to repeat things three times to get people to remember them, so now I'm done._


	2. A Face Lit By Fire

Hidden Faces – a Death Note fanfic  
Chapter Two: A Face Lit By Fire

"I . . . I feel responsible for this," he had said. "Chief Yagami took the Shinigami eyes to atone for his actions . . . Allow me to destroy the notebook to atone for my own!"

Near turned to look at the Shinigami.

"The thirteen-day rule . . . Is it fake?" he asked, trying to appear nonchalant.

"Heh-heh . . . yes," Ryuk laughed.

While everyone turned their attention to the Shinigami, Matsuda dropped the Death Note into his lap and took the replica out of his briefcase.

"And the rule about everyone who touched the notebook dying if we destroy it – is that also fake?"

"Yes."

"Then Matsuda, it's a horrible murder weapon and you can burn it."

Matsuda nodded. He ripped the pages out of the cover and threw them on the floor, then took out a lighter he had packed for the occasion and set fire to the stack. It was the end of the Death Note – for the near future.

* * *

Matsuda woke. Most mornings, waking was a gradual process, slowly coming into the real world from the fantasy of dreams. Occasionally, he would sleep in later and would experience the short shock of the alarm clock. But today, the events of yesterday, especially Light's tortured face, with his messy hair covering his face, a stream of blood flowing out of the corner of his mouth, and furious despair shining brightly in his eyes, flashed in front of Matsuda's vision and threw him upright in bed.

"Damn it!" he roared, "why the hell did I shoot him?"

Ryuk was sitting in the corner of the room, laughing and eating an apple.

"You think you can ever measure up to Light, Matsuda?" he asked.

"They can all see you. I can't have you following me around all day," he countered, ignoring the challenge.

"Surely you can find a way around that?" asked Ryuk. "C'mon, things have gotten so _boring_ around here. Go make things interesting, Matsuda."

"I can't do anything if they see you following me around. What's the one conclusion they'll come to? I want them to think Kira is dead and buried. Seeing a Shinigami floating all over the place isn't going to help them arrive at that conclusion. Give me a year."

"I have to sit around the house for a year?"

"I'll do some tests in the meantime. What happens if I give up ownership of the note?"

"You lose all your memories of me and of the note. I told you already."

"And what about everyone who's touched the note? Could they still see you?"

"I'm not sure," said Ryuk, happily munching the apple. "It's worth a try. Anything is better than being stuck in the house for a year."

Matsuda grinned.

"Fine then. I'm going to mail it to myself. Once I give it up, go check if Misa can see you. It'll be back in about a week."

Ryuk laughed, managing to spit out, "Humans are so interesting!" with chunks of apple.

* * *

When Matsuda had first been introduced to Light Yagami, he had taken one look at Light's face and gotten an impression of a charismatic, successful person who was nevertheless somewhat vain. Of course, you got that with geniuses. L, and, of course, Matsuda himself exhibited that trait sometimes (but Matsuda had needed to suppress it for his disguise, and was thus better at eliminating it from his behavior). Something about the way L looked at Light made Matsuda suspicious, and as L guessed that Light was Kira, Matsuda felt himself supporting the guess. But he wanted Kira to win, so he used his persona to combat against it as fiercely as possible. L, knowing of Matsuda's second face, probably thought that behavior was his version of support. Once again, no one took any notice of Matsuda's antics.

* * *

With a flash, Matsuda's memories were restored to him.

"Well?" he asked, staring at the Shinigami who had just appeared in front of him.

"Your plan worked, Matsuda. You're looking to be even more interesting than Light!" Ryuk chuckled with glee.

The notebook had spent a week without an owner. That seemed to have had the effect of canceling out all of its past influences. As he thought, Matsuda reached for an apple, but Ryuk got it first. He scowled at the Shinigami and took a different one.

"Whatcha going to do now?" asked Ryuk. "After all, you ever told me what you were going to do once you figured out if they could see me."

"I'm going to perform some tests to see exactly what the notebook is capable of. If you want to watch the tests, feel free. Otherwise you get to wait in suspense. Your call."

Ryuk had to hand it to the human – he knew how to make life difficult.

* * *

"There's nothing really scientific about the notebook," Matsuda said two months later, a grin spreading across his face.

"What?" asked Ryuk. "What do you mean by that?"

"Think about it for a moment," he said, leaning back in the chair. "All you need to kill someone is their birth name and their face, as well as the notebook and a writing utensil. You know this probably far better than anyone else."

Ryuk laughed.

"Well, it's true, _Tota Matsuda_," he said, reading the name on Matsuda's forehead.

Matsuda's smile grew wider. Even a Shinigami . . . How interesting!

"Anyways," he said, "It doesn't matter what kind of ink you use. Blue, black, blood – people died every time. I bet you could use mayonnaise if you wanted. So it's not the actual writing that kills them."

Ryuk cackled.

"Interesting!" he chortled. "Humans are so interesting!"

Matsuda pressed onward.

"And we know that the Death Note itself works whether or not the pages are intact. Light was always hiding little bits of the note in his wallet – or his watch," he added, mentally kicking himself for the events in the warehouse. "So the pages have the real power. The cover of the book mean nothing."

Ryuk kept laughing.

"Thirdly, you need a name and a face to kill them. I wondered about this for a long time. Then I realized that, as your rules said, many people have the same name. And identical twins have the same face. So one or the other wouldn't work. Rather, the combination of face and name, which I might add is what the Shinigami see when they look at someone's face, is what the Death Note works on. It was designed for use by the Shinigami, so all you need to operate it is what a God of Death can catch with a glance. The rules about taking excess lifespan follow from this reasoning as well."

"So then why do you say that there's nothing scientific about the notebook?" Ryuk asked.

"Because, from a physics standpoint, nothing directly links the notebook to the deaths it causes. It's not radioactive and it works when shielded. The only reason we see a sort of cause/effect relationship is because the evidence hits us again and again and again. No one can say that the notebooks are fake at this point. Now, what I'm getting at here is the source of the notebooks' power."

"Oh, figured it out, have you?" Ryuk laughed. "Do tell."

"The source of the notebooks' power is its origin: the world of the Shinigami. That's why you need to be present now that I've got one under my control. You provide a link to the source of power. It's like taking along a radio antenna when going camping."

"Camping?" asked Ryuk.

"It's a human activity where you pack up a bag and go and sleep in a tent in the woods," Matsuda said dismissively, adding "away from civilization" as an afterthought.

Predictably, Ryuk chuckled. It was kind of therapeutic, in a way.

"So, why did I do all of this research?" asked Matsuda. "Why did I spend all this time arriving at conclusions I already know? Because now I can go ahead with an experiment I had planned."

"Ooh, sounds entertaining!" said Ryuk.

"Yes, yes it does," smiled Matsuda. "Follow me. Well, I guess I don't have to tell you that."

They walked into Matsuda's basement, where a single page of the death note was lying on a table with various pieces of equipment scattered around the room.

"The first question is whether or not the note would work if you damaged it. Yesterday I cut it in half and taped it back together. Writing on the taped-up side," he said, lifting up the page to show Ryuk the writing on the bottom, "didn't work. I'm guessing that's because some of the name went on the tape. But the guy on this side," he said, flipping the page around, "died. So making a cut and resealing it doesn't affect the notebooks' power."

"Oh!" said Ryuk. "So you could repair damaged pages. That's useful."

Matsuda wasn't sure if the Shinigami was mocking him or not. Regardless, he was always laughing.

He walked over to the basement sink. After filling a glass with water, he measured the weight of a piece of the note and put it in the glass of water.

"If the theory holds true," he said, "then this will still work despite having been submerged."

"What then?" asked Ryuk, still chuckling, but curious.

"You'll see," said Matsuda.

* * *

When Light had submitted to imprisonment to clear his name, Matsuda had almost applauded. L and Light shared a sense of theater. This was before anyone but Light (and Misa and Ryuk and Rem – but they were pawns) knew of the notebooks' existence. Matsuda was just as taken by surprise as L was, but he appreciated good theater. Light had a plan, of course. The only reason he would ever turn himself in would be to 'prove' his innocence, which is to say, come up with a tricky reason to keep doing whatever he was doing in a way that made it seem like he wasn't doing it. Like with the potato chips, for example. He kept sneaking furtive glances at his chip bag and it _thunk'_ed when he dropped it in the trash. But you only noticed it if you hacked the computer for the files and watched it once in slow motion and once with the audio turned all the way up. And you would only think of that if you came up with a crazy hypothesis like, "That guy's Kira and he's hiding a screen in his chip bag."

But this time there were no chips. And sure enough, the killings stopped, just like that. Had he grown tired of the chase? No, he couldn't. The cat-and-mouse game was his entire life at this point. It wouldn't be that odd neurosis that causes fugitives to turn themselves in, either. No, if it looked like he was guilty now, then it definitely wouldn't turn out that way. The fact that he actually was guilty was a minor detail.

Right before Light arrived, Misa had snapped and started rambling. Matsuda suspected Light at once, but, as having Misa go insane would not have helped the situation at all, he had to conclude it was an external factor. Matsuda began to feel anxiety, and he seized the microphone from L and yelled at Misa to stop the crap about the stalker. The look L gave him afterwards – he tried to bury the memory, bury L's face as it looked across the years, seeing right through him and out the other side.

* * *

Matsuda emerged from the basement.

"I have extended the potential of the Death Note by a magnitude of about fifty," he crowed, "and eliminated its most worrisome factor."

"Really?" asked Ryuk. "Even Light didn't try something like that. I think you really will be more entertaining than him."

"Relative entertainment values aside, I'm never going to lose the way he did," said Matsuda, glowing with triumph. "Here's the end result."

He held up a ballpoint pen.

"That's a pen, Matsuda," Ryuk offered, chuckling. "You use it to write the names _in_ the notebook."

Smiling, Matsuda began his explanation: "Soaked in water, the note worked perfectly. And, by the way, my 'test subjects' can't be traced back to Kira. They were all in hospice – the place where we send old humans to live their last weeks."

"Then how can you be sure if the note worked?" asked Ryuk. "You might have picked someone who was about to die anyways."

"Well, no thanks to you. But I double- and triple-checked. Now, after confirming the success of that test, I blended a piece of the note and tried writing on that. I tested it four times and it worked all four times. So now I've mixed the paste in with writing ink. I wasn't sure about the concentrations, so I wrote Misa's name with the word 'suicide' once per day with a higher and higher ratio of notebook to ink. I lucked out – the first working concentration got her on Valentines Day and they won't suspect a thing. So, the result of this process is a pen that, when you write, ends up pasting incredibly tiny pieces of the Death Note to the paper – or plastic or wood or maybe the back of your hand – in the exact shape of your handwriting, then puts the ink on top of it. So now technically all the blank space on the page, including the stuff on the inside of letters and between them, is being used. No more Death Note. Just a harmless-looking, normal pen."

"Impressive!" Ryuk said. "I think now you're even more paranoid about hiding the Note than Light was!"

"What did he do?" asked Matsuda out of curiosity.

"He kept it in his desk drawer and set it to blow up if anyone ever opened it."

Both of them laughed together.

* * *

Some days, it became difficult to talk to the ex-members of the task force. Matsuda found himself desiring other company, trying to stay away from the people who had been his only companions for years. They seemed to him more cowardly, more venal, more duplicitous than he remembered them last. Was it only because he had seen their true faces? If certain philosophers were correct, then every stinking member of the human race was two-faced like what were once his closest friends.

Is this how Kira felt, right before he picked up the notebook? Was the world really capable of justice? Even in the Old World, (in which by accident Matsuda had found himself again) they needed L to solve their crimes, L who was not moral or ethical, L who was a sociopath and denied all of society's customs, L who screwed with everyone else's head's for his own amusement. L, who demanded, "Matsuda! More coffee!"

Light, Kira, undoubtedly had the right idea. Self-interested humans – how interesting they were when you watched them from above! – could not be persuaded, could not be reasoned with, to abide by laws or customs. Ultimately they broke whatever laws they needed to for their own goals. Underneath, they were all like L – they sacrificed other people for their own ends, they used the people around them for their own amusement. The only way to ensure cooperation from a self-interested, petty human was to attack their self-interest. _Follow Kira,_ you must say to their heart of hearts, their second face, _or wrath shall rain down upon you for your transgressions_. This was not a new idea. Draco of Athens had been the first to pronounce it, long before notebooks or even technology. They had hated him for it, but justice was done.

And that was all that mattered, at the end of the day. Justice was done.

"Is that how they will remember me? Like they remember Kira?" he asked to the empty night.

"Why should you care?" responded Ryuk from behind him. "Heh-heh! Humans are _soooo _interesting!"

* * *

The biggest threat at this point was Near. Near, the brat from Wammy's house who had made his debut wearing L's mask and had never been able to take it off . . .

It would be easy to kill him, especially now that he had the new device. But suddenly he knew the curse of that brand of genius, the thing that had done in both L and Light. They all had a sense of theater, and they wanted to see their opponent broken right before they died. It was L's need for proof that got him killed, and Light had immediately knelt over the body so that the last thing L would see would be the face of his opponent, victorious at last . . .

And it was Near's need for proof that stopped him from just having Light killed, and he had been rewarded with Light's final breakdown. That was the thing about rewards – oftentimes they got handed out to people who didn't deserve them.

How to kill Near? Matsuda wanted him crushed, broken, writhing in a pool of his own blood just like he had done to Light. He must know that he had lost, and not through any stupid mistakes made by his underlings, but because he wasn't good enough, had never been good enough . . .

He had to know that he had never surpassed L.

The question was really about how to drag him into the game in such a way that he could never figure out the real secret until too late. Preferably, he would never figure it out until Matsuda told him. In the end, it would have to be a heart attack. No other end was as fitting. But before that, he would suffer as Matsuda explained to him how he had lost.

The anniversary of the scene at the warehouse was approaching fast. Near would arrive on some pretense or other without a doubt. And he would bring with him the memory of the L-mask and the knowledge that, underneath his act, he could never measure up to the face he wore.

A plan began to form in Matsuda's mind. His face gleamed with the fires of revenge. He smiled, and the smile was Kira's smile.

"Ryuk," he said, "are you ready for the biggest piece of theater yet?"

As always, the Shinigami laughed.

* * *

_Misa really did die on Valentines day, according to Book Thirteen: How To Read._

___So, I kinda went over the same time period as the last section in the previous chapter, in case I didn't make that clear enough. Like many Hollywood trilogies, the first chapter stands alone, while the second chapter is obviously setting the stage for the third. That said, write me more reviews and stay tuned._

___Why do we say things like "stay tuned" when the radio is nearly defunct as a communications medium? ____I leave you with that thought._


	3. A Facade Cloaked in Shadow

Hidden Faces – a Death Note fanfic

Chapter Three: A Façade Cloaked in Shadow

_Dies irae, dies illa_

Matsuda floated above the clouds, watching the sunrise. He blinked; the rays hurt his eyes. He forced himself to stare into the sun, and he no longer needed to blink. He gazed at a sunspot for a moment before turning his face away to the earth below. He noticed a speck on the ground below, and, flapping his wings, he glided down until he could see more details. It was a car, driving back towards the Yellow Box warehouse.

_Solvet saeclum in favilla_

When it arrived, he landed beside it. Aizawa and Mogi got out and they walked with him into the warehouse. As they walked, a man Matsuda knew was himself got out of the car and followed them, catching up once they reached the door. Once inside, they found the SPK waiting for them with guns drawn, Near hunched over in the center. He also had a gun, but Matsuda knew it was unloaded.

_Teste David cum Sibylla!_

"We know you're Kira," said Near. "I've outsmarted you."

"No, you haven't," said Matsuda. "I've perfected the Death Note. I am a god now!"

"You're too late," said Near. "I already knew everything. We've been watching you to see what you'd come up with. And now that you've given me what I need, I wrote your name in the notebook."

He raised a page of the note just as he had once shown the room the list of names.

"'Tota Matsuda,'" read Matsuda, "'dies of heart attack 2:35 PM.' But it can't work."

"You have forty seconds to figure it out," said Near.

_Quantus tremor est futurus!_

Matsuda whipped out his pen and wrote _Nate River_ on the Death Note.

"That's the wrong pen," Near said calmly.

Matsuda, snarling, grabbed another pen and wrote the name. Near smiled. Matsuda grabbed another, and another, and another, and there were only five seconds left. He heard Ryuk laughing and whirled around to face the Shinigami, demand of him why he hadn't been there to help, why he was only watching now. But it was Kira, Light Yagami, flying on a pair of black wings, holding the pen in his outstretched hand. Matsuda reached for it, but he was too far away and his limbs were growing heavy. His wings flapped feebly as he tried to keep himself off the ground, when the other Matsuda cleared his throat.

_Quando judex est venturus_

"You are not one of us," he heard. "You were never one of us."

The other Matsuda raised his gun.

"It's been forty seconds!" shouted Matsuda, wings losing the strength to stay aloft. "Why hasn't it been forty seconds?"

"Five seconds left," said Near, and Matsuda suddenly saw L behind him, staring through Matsuda. "Still five seconds."

"You will never surpass me," said L, staring at him.

Matsuda turned and tried to take the pen from Light, but it was just out of reach. He turned back to look at the assembled group and the other Matsuda fired. Wings flapping frantically, given energy by shock, Matsuda crawled towards Light. Reaching up for the pen, he saw the wound in Light's hand.

_Cuncta stricte discussurus!_

"You don't deserve this pen," said Light, still laughing. "You don't deserve that mask."

Matsuda realized with a shock that he was wearing the L mask he had scorned Near for. He feebly tried to tear it off his face, but he was too tired, too tired.

"But . . . I didn't . . . make . . . any . . . mistakes . . . " he managed to say, losing strength as the blood pored endlessly out of his chest, his arms, his hand.

"Wrong," said L. "We knew everything all along."

The other Matsuda reloaded his gun.

"We defeated you," said the other Matsuda, placing his gun under Matsuda's shin. "Remember that."

Matsuda woke, the gunshot still ringing in his ears.

* * *

"I'm not going to lose," Matsuda murmured as he dialed a number on his cell phone.

"Hello, you have reached Red Apple Publishers. What can we do for you?" came a voice from the other end.

"May I speak with your manager, please?" he asked.

"Certainly. Please hold."

Matsuda had founded Red Apple Publishers through an anonymous donation using pension money he had gotten from Near. Wammy's estate, which he presumed it must have come from, was massive. L had used his funds to build a skyscraper in the middle of downtown Tokyo, for goodness' sake. If that wasn't a prime example of L trying to get in everyone's face at once, then nothing was.

Near was going to die in the most humiliating way possible. And for Near, that would mean the knowledge that he had not succeeded and that all of his pride was founded on a failure. If he could do all this while in extreme pain, then that was good too. The best way to accomplish this was through Red Apple Publishers.

"Hello?" asked Matsuda's latest pawn. The publishing company had not yet expanded to the point where there were more than one level of management.

"I am about to give you the book. How soon can you make a copy?"

"I'd have to see the book in question. If we can make a master copy, all subsequent copies could be made from that one."

"Excellent. I'm on my way."

Matsuda hung up. Then he winked at Ryuk.

"It starts here," he said.

He walked over the couch and, burying his face in one of the pillows, began to scream for several minutes. After getting up, he coughed experimentally.

"Right," he said, his voice now gravelly and hoarse. He called the police office. Ryuk laughed.

"Hello?" asked the receiver.

"Matsuda here" he said. "I've come down with a bit of a cold. (cough cough) I may need to stay home for a (cough) a few days and recuper–(cough) recuperate."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Matsuda," said the receiver. "Get better soon and come in as soon as possible."

Matsuda went over to the kitchen and filled a glass with ice water, then grabbed a cough drop as an afterthought. Ryuk kept laughing.

"You know what, Ryuk?" Matsuda said. "I think people are stupid."

"But they're so interesting!" said Ryuk, still laughing.

"Yes," said Matsuda, staring out the window. "They are interesting indeed."

* * *

Two days later and he had the Death Note back, while Red Apple Publishing now had their master copy. Matsuda had also given them an envelope containing instructions as to quantity and delivery. Now he turned his attention to the beginning of the hunt.

Near would immediately spring for a murder obviously committed by Kira. But he would respond with force, and like as not he would immediately try to incapacitate Matsuda simply because he had been the last to have the Note. The fact that Matsuda had burned it in front of them all would not factor into his suspicions.

It would be best to narrow down the playing field. Matsuda took a die that had been left out from his Yatzee game with Ryuk and rolled it, throwing a list of names together as it came to a halt.

One. That was Ide.

The next day, Matsuda came to work with an extra pen. He tried to be in the same room with Mogi as much as possible. Finally, Ide excused himself to go to the restroom. Matsuda grabbed his pen and followed. He was quite fortunate, for he found when he entered that no one else was there.

He sat in the stall next to Ide and, checking his watch, pulled out the pen. He carefully pulled out a few sheets of toilet paper so as not to let Ide hear.

"Hideki Ide," he wrote. "Slips on the bathroom floor (he checked his watch again) at 10:24 AM, 5/14/11 and crushes voice box on stall door. Damages brain tissue and begins to hemorrhage. Is taken to the hospital and dies of a stroke three days later at 4:38 PM."

That was all. He waited until Ide stood up and opened the door and for one awful moment he thought the pen had failed. Then there was the sound of a shoe slipping on a tiled floor, and Ide fell. He slammed into the edge of the stall door and Matsuda fancied he heard a dull thud as Ide's skull hit the ground. Grinning madly, he flushed the makeshift Death Note and walked slowly over to Ide, who was retching and clutching his throat.

"That was for Kira," Matsuda said. Ide's eye's widened. Matsuda touched him with the tip of the pen and suddenly Ide heard the laughter of Ryuk.

"Hello," said Ryuk, chuckling.

"You all missed it," said Matsuda, the naïve young man gone from his behavior. "Did you think anyone could ever really be as stupid as Tota Matsuda? But you fell for it! But you killed Kira. The world needed Kira, and you took him away for your own pride. So die now, and stay out of my way."

Ide couldn't speak. But somehow his face managed to tell Matsuda _you'll never get away with this, you duplicitous scum!_ Matsuda laughed. Then the mask was back. His face took on a horrified expression and, almost stumbling, he ran for the door. The mask reasserted itself and Kira was forced below the surface. Freedom had been fun while it lasted.

"Ide's hurt himself!" he cried. "Someone help!"

* * *

Tota Matsuda cried at the funeral. That was expected of him. The mask would be worn for a while longer. But someone underneath, someone who did not cry, did not pity the deceased, laughed along with the Shinigami at his left hand. Kira laughed behind the mask.

As he was walking home, he decided to approach Mogi about the Kira issue. Mogi, who had taken over the job as Misa's manager. Dependable Mogi. Steadfast Mogi.

One day about five weeks later, as he was coming home from work, Mogi received a call from Matsuda.

"Hello, Matsuda?" he said. "What is it?"

"I am Kira," came the reply.

The world froze.

"Do exactly as I say or you will die," Matsuda continued. "I have the Death Note right here in front of me."

"Matsuda – you tricked us all?" Mogi asked.

"I did. And you killed Kira when we needed him most. So now we're even. _Near_ly."

But the pun was lost on Mogi.

"There's going to be a bombing at the mall in ten minutes. Hurry there and try to restore order."

"I will do it. But we will need to talk later."

"Of course," said Matsuda. "I'm free for about three hours afterwards. Come and talk."

After the explosion went off, Mogi hurriedly looked around for Matsuda. He saw him, the old grin still on his face. But his eyes! How terrible his eyes had become!

Matsuda waved a piece of paper, still grinning. As he approached Mogi, he touched Mogi with it and suddenly Ryuk was standing there, laughing.

"I lied, Mogi," he said. "You don't get to talk afterwards."

He walked off, calmly, assuredly. The Shinigami laughed and kept on laughing, following the face of Kira. Mogi went for his gun to kill him before he overthrew the world once more. But then a big man knocked him over and, as he struggled to get up, another man stepped on his leg and he heard it snap. People rushed over him, kicking him, bruising him, stepping on him. He reflected, tranquil amidst the pain, that he had been too naïve and that Matsuda had betrayed them all from the beginning. He was going to die.

Matsuda turned to look, just once. And he laughed, the laugh of a Shinigami, and read the piece of paper once more.

"Kanzo Mogi, 6/23/11 – enters mall on the way home at 6:13 PM and is crushed to death by fleeing mob."

And another entry below that, one for a terrorist who blew himself up without achieving a single casualty.

Kira laughed.

* * *

"What if Kira returned?" he asked Aizawa after the second funeral. "I shot him. I'm going to be next!"

"It's not Kira," Aizawa tried to reassure him. "He would have killed us all at once. Besides, you destroyed the notebook yourself."

"There were others," said Matsuda, lowering his voice. "More Death Gods brought their notebooks. What if a new Kira came?"

"Then he wouldn't know our names, Matsuda! Think clearly!" Aizawa snapped.

Behind the mask, Kira smirked. He tried a new approach.

"What if Near's trying to kill us? We're the only ones who know about the notes. He could be trying to eliminate the evidence, just like he wanted the notebooks burned."

Aiwaza couldn't find a way to escape from Matsuda's persistence.

"Please, just respect Mogi's memory and don't say stupid things," he said lamely.

Matsuda felt obliged to look cowed again. But this was the last time.

"I'm sorry," he said. Ryuk laughed.

* * *

One week later, the old SPK lost two of its former members in a car accident. The Death Note could only kill one person per incident, so Matsuda had Stephen Loud (who went by 'Gevanni') break his neck in the accident and Halle Bullock (who went by 'Lidner') contract a fatal infection from shrapnel. During her hospitalization, she left Near a message in much the same way Light had once taunted L.

Hunched over in his office, playing with his toys, Near had no choice but to return to Japan and hunt down Kira. Again. Matsuda waited, making sure all of his plans were ready to catch the brat. Near couldn't hide behind L's mask any longer.

"I've received a call from Near," Aizawa told him one day. "Ms. Lidner and Mr. Gevanni died last week."

Matsuda looked shocked, then forced himself to feel fear.

"It's Kira!" he said. "We're going to die!"

_He was back in L's command center, watching the Shinigami Rem fade through the wall. Would she stop at L's name, or would they all go into the pages of the Death Note, reduced to a name on a list of names, insignificant?_

_ Watari began to pant heavily on the other end of the radio. Rem had killed him first._

"Matsuda?" asked Aizawa. "Hello?"

"S-sorry, I . . . I was remembering something," Matsuda responded, shaking his head.

"We'll be fine. We can go back to using the old badges," Aizawa tried to reassure him. "The fake ones. You remember?"

"Yeah . . . I remember."

_The screens blanked out. "All Data Deleted," they proclaimed._

_ "Watari? Watari!" cried L._

_ Then he gave a short gasp, so sudden it might have been a hiccup. Matsuda gasped in sympathy._

"Matsuda! Are you okay?" asked Aizawa, bringing Matsuda back to the present.

"I . . . don't feel so well," said Matsuda, somewhat frightened by thee lapses.

Aizawa probably thought it was Kira, but he refrained from saying so to prevent Matsuda any unnecessary stress.

"You've been quiet since you got sick a few months ago," he said at last. "I don't think you fully recovered."

_Of course, even L obeyed the laws of physics. Intellectually, Matsuda could say that he fell at exactly the same pace as anyone else. But L did not fall so much a glide, gracefully leaning over in his chair and floating gently to the ground_. _He did not cry out or moan as he lay amidst the ruin of his snack and his ambition, Light Yagami leaning over him and sobbing. The last thing he saw was the mask of Kira, who had defeated him._

Matsuda jerked himself into reality again.

"The day's about over," he said. "I think I'll go home."

Aizawa looked at him sympathetically but said nothing.

_Light knew the rules of the game. They expected him to act as though he cared, pretend to be one of them. As though a human life meant something to him. So he sobbed over the body of his defeated enemy._

"I–" Matsuda said, surfacing once more.

_Light screamed. "We're all going to die!"_

Matsuda got up unsteadily and began walking home.

_Light screamed. "We're all going to die!"_

Matsuda struggled up from where he had fallen.

_"We're all going to die!" he said, but with his heart elsewhere. L was dead. There were no more obstacles between him and his goal of utopia._

Matsuda _looked down on L's face, impassive, noble in defeat, as his eyes closed and his face froze for eternity._

He stumbled through the door _and stood at the graveside, watched the others walk away, stared at the stone angels_.

He managed to crawl into bed and lie there motionless, but the visions did not come.

"What's the matter, Matsuda?" asked Ryuk. "Things will get boring if you just sleep all day. What about Near?"

"Near can wait," mumbled Matsuda. "I'm feeling kind of–"

The dream, the nightmare of the warehouse assailed him again.

_

* * *

Light never showed these signs of stress_, Matsuda told himself later.

He was staring at the sunrise again, Ryuk – silent for once – at his shoulder. The shakiness of yesterday had been banished to memory, but even as a memory it was a sobering fact. His face was tired, melancholic.

"Near should be arriving today," he said, turning to Ryuk.

Ryuk laughed. Some of the mask returned to Matsuda's face and he smiled.

"Finally, some entertainment!" Ryuk said.

"Yes," replied Matsuda thoughtfully. He was not in top form at the moment, but he could be ready to go in another day. Near wouldn't be able to pull anything conclusive in the meantime.

"Yes," he said again, more confident this time. More of the old Matsuda crept back into his face.

He called Aizawa to ask if Near had contacted him yet, was given a negative answer, and got ready for work. It was possibly his last week as a police officer.

As he left the house, a figure rose from behind a bush and began following him. It took out a cell phone as it walked and dialed a number.

"Anything unusually?" asked Near over the phone.

"I'm not sure," replied Lester. "He was staring out the window and I think I saw his mouth move, but I don't see the Shinigami. He's just left for work."

"Keep me informed," said Near.

Matsuda walked onward, oblivious. Ryuk said nothing.

* * *

Around lunchtime, Aizawa got a call from Near, ordering him to go to the Yellow Box warehouse. He in turn told Matsuda, and they drove together to the place that still lived in Matsuda's nightmares.

How much did Near know? What machinations did he have in place?

"We're here," said Aizawa, waking Matsuda from his reverie.

They walked towards the warehouse, Matsuda's anxiety growing with each step. When they reached the door, Matsuda hesitated, then forced himself to walk through.

"Hello," said Near. He was standing in the same place as he had one and a half years ago, the fateful day when Kira had gone the way of all of his victims. That could not possibly be coincidence.

"Hi," said Matsuda, very much now a young man of the day, nervous but cordial.

"I suppose you're wondering why I called you here," asked Near. "Kira is back. But he is not resuming his judgements, not yet at least. No, he is attempting to take out the ones who knew of the notebook."

"Then he's going to kill us!" exclaimed Matsuda. "I knew it!"

"It depends on whether or not he wants us to know he won," Near condescended. "Light, in his arrogance, was defeated because he declared victory. If this new Kira is anything like Light, then he will also attempt to declare victory. I suspect that is why only about half of the witnesses of Light Yagami's defeat are now dead."

"B-but Ide-san had an accident by himself!" Matsuda objected. "And Ms. Lidner and Mr. Gevanni were together in the car when they crashed! How could Kira let them know he won?"

"It's possible that Kira was only getting them out of the way," said Near. "After all, the group here is composed of the man who defeated Kira, the man who actually shot Kira, the first man to begin doubting in Light, and the top member of the SPK. If any of us die, we will know who Kira is before it happens."

Matsuda and Aizawa looked at each other.

"There is another factor," said Near. "Only the witnesses in the warehouse knew the names of everyone present. Anyone outside the investigation would not."

"Now you suspect us?" cried Aizawa.

"Why would any us of kill our friends?" asked Matsuda, pleading.

"Light sacrificed his own father," answered Near. "However, there are other alternatives. Suppose Light had Mikami, his pair of eyes if you recall, send the names in an email. Or suppose that Shinigami, Ryuk, came back with another notebook and told the new Kira the names of the people who had defeated Light. We cannot be sure."

"Then we're clean?" asked Matsuda.

"No. I'm about 10% sure that one of you is Kira," Near said. "And about 2% certain about you, Lester."

"What about you?" said Matsuda. "You could be Kira. Did you really destroy the pages you took from Mikami's notebook?"

"I did," said Near. "I destroyed them because they were a horrible murder weapon."

"And what about the Shinigami?" asked Matsuda. "He left when we burned the notebook. If one of us were Kira, wouldn't he be here?"

Ryuk laughed.

"Kira could have found a way to make him invisible again," said Near calmly.

Ryuk laughed again, harder.

"I don't believe this," said Matsuda. "I'm leaving."

"Yes," said Aizawa. "If you're going to toss around accusations like this so lightly, then we aren't working with you."

They went back to work. Near watched them leave, saying nothing.

"It's about 30% for Matsuda-san, now," he said to Lester.

"I agree," said Lester. "He's acting strangely."

* * *

_Things are starting to get interesting, or at least I hope they are. You know you're dedicated to a story when you jump up from the computer, grab a pen, and test how many sheets of toilet paper you need to stack up in order to write (it's five)._

_Once again, I'm going to have to warn you that, if you don't write me lots of reviews, Matsuda will come for you. That is all._


	4. Glorious Visage

Hidden Faces – a Death Note fanfic  
Chapter Four: Glorious Visage

Matsuda was sitting at home, the TV blaring in the background without him taking notice.

"Near really nailed you, didn't he?" asked Ryuk. "This is going to be entertaining!"

"He's not anywhere _near_ a conviction," said Matsuda. "It'll be over in a few days at most."

"Even so, aren't you afraid he'll stop you?" asked Ryuk. "After all, he beat Light."

"No!" said Matsuda. "He got lucky. This time, I have no Mikami to give me a weakness. He's got nothing on me. I bet he's even got Lester following me but can't get any proof."

"Humans are so interesting!" laughed Ryuk.

Matsuda lifted up the Death Note. He examined the cover, flipped through the pages, reading names here and there. Then he placed it in a box.

"What are you doing?" asked Ryuk.

"I'm sending it to Near," said Matsuda. "He has a right to know he's on the right track."

"Wow, you're confident, aren't you?" said Ryuk. "Remember, this guy killed Light."

"No," said Matsuda. "You and I killed Light."

Ryuk laughed.

* * *

Matsuda took a normal piece of paper and a normal pen.

_Near_, he wrote,_ I'm giving you my Death Note for safekeeping. Not because you need it, since we both know you kept the pages from Mikami's note, but so we both know this is a battle of wits. Bring it to the Red Apple Publishers warehouse as soon as you get this and we can see who is the better mind. I won't hide behind an L mask like you did. I won't hide behind a mask at all. By the way, your guess about Kira is correct._

And he left it like that. He sealed the letter in an envelope and placed it in the box. He addressed the package to the Yellow Box warehouse turned office and put it his mailbox when he was sure Lester wasn't hiding anywhere. Ryuk laughed.

"So, are you trying to make it look like you now?" he asked. "Near knows your face and name."

"And I know his," countered Matsuda. "If you had read closely, you would have noticed I told him that his guess was correct. Which one? He told us several."

Ryuk laughed.

"So you basically told him nothing at all," said Ryuk. "Interesting!"

"Wrong. I told him who Kira was."

"What?" Ryuk was visibly surprised.

"Which guess? That's the question," said Matsuda. "And because I didn't clarify, he's in the dark."

* * *

"Except that the fact that this package came the day after my meeting with Matsuda and Aizawa," said Near to Lester, "seems to indicate that it wasn't one of the alternate solutions."

* * *

"Rather," Matsuda continued, "I am referring to the guess he made that he did not tell us."

* * *

"And so it seems he is talking about my suspicion of Matsuda," finished Near.

"Incredible!" said Lester.

* * *

"Really?" asked Ryuk.

"Yes," said Matsuda, grinning. "But there's a catch."

* * *

"Yes," said Near, "But it's a trick. The fact that he's already predicting my guesses means he knows how I think. Case in point: he guessed I had narrowed it down to Aizawa and Matsuda. Therefore he's lying."

* * *

"Near won't reconsider, though," said Matsuda. "All the signs point to one of two suspects, Aizawa or me."

* * *

"What is the purpose," Near said, "of Matsuda's telling me that he is truly Kira, especially if he's just giving me the Death Note? Supposing I were to use it, killing Matsuda for my suspicions, and then destroy it? It would be the same situation as killing Light and Mikami and then waiting for the judgements to stop. Only this time, there aren't even any judgements! Does he think I'm a fool? No, Matsuda is not Kira. It can only be Aizawa."

"What if it's a test and Matsuda actually is Kira?" asked Lester.

"If he were to give me such a test, he would not put himself on the line. He is acting like Light, and Light was cowardly."

* * *

"So Near will suspect Aizawa and possibly write his name in the notebook. Then he will come to the warehouse and be defeated," Matsuda concluded.

Ryuk laughed, long and hard.

_

* * *

Shuichi Aizawa – dies November 28, 2011_

_ Enters Red Apple Publishers warehouse at 2:39 PM_

_ Tells everything he knows about the Kira case_

_ Dies of a heart attack 4:20 PM_

* * *

"Today's the big day," said Matsuda. "Ready, Ryuk?"

"This is going to be fun!" said Ryuk.

They drove – well, Matsuda drove and Ryuk floated inside the car – to the Red Apple Publishers warehouse. It was about 1:30.

Matsuda parked the car where it would not be immediately obvious and began to walk towards the warehouse. Ryuk followed.

They reached the door.

"Ready for a surprise?" Matsuda asked.

"What surprise?" asked Ryuk.

Matsuda opened the door.

"What?" asked Ryuk. Then he started laughing. Matsuda laughed with him.

* * *

"Here it is," said Lester. "I don't see any other cars."

"There's one over in the corner," said Near. "I don't know whose it is."

They walked into the warehouse and opened the door.

"What in the–" breathed Lester.

_Quantus tremor est futurus!_

Stacked up about two stories, stretching out dozens of feet in every direction, was a pile of black volumes. As they got close enough to find a path into the stack, where Kira undoubtedly was waiting, Near picked up a book. It was a Death Note. Flipping through the pages, he found all the names from the Kira case. It was a copy! All of these books were copies of the original! Undoubtedly, the Death Note Kira had mailed to them was also a copy, although he had taken the time to write in the details of his recent victims' deaths towards the end.

"Kira!" shouted Near. "Where are you?"

"Come in," said Matsuda.

They walked into the maze of copies, surrounded by what was tantamount to a physical representation of Kira laughing in their faces.

"Aizawa should be along in a moment," said Matsuda when they walked into the clearing into the middle of the pile.

"You!" said Near. "It was you all along!"

_Quando judex est venturus_

"It was Kira all along," said Matsuda calmly. "And I would have helped him if he weren't predisposed to kill me after my usefulness had run its course."

"This Note is fake, isn't it," said Near. "Otherwise, why would you send it to me?"

"It's fake," said Matsuda, "but this one isn't."

He pulled out the Death Note, the real one, from his briefcase and slid it over to Near. Near picked it up and offered it to Aizawa.

"I relinquish ownership of the Death Note," said Matsuda.

"What!" exclaimed Lester and Near together. Ryuk laughed, and floated over to Near's side.

"He's not joking," Ryuk chuckled.

"You obviously retained your memories," said Near, "so you must have a piece on your person somewhere."

In fact, Matsuda had written on his arm with the Death Note pen. He drew the pen and picked up the fake notebook.

_Cuncta stricte discussurus!_

"This pen has the properties of the Death Note," he said. "And you're holding the Death Note itself. When Aizawa gets here, I will kill him to demonstrate. All you have to do to save him is write my name in the Death Note."

Lester took out a pen and looked at Near.

"Wait," said Near. "Let me think."

He took several Notes on the ground and began arranging them in a complex stack.

"Well?" said Matsuda, standing motionless, pen held loosely in his left hand, fake Death Note poised in the right like a spell book.

"It's too easy," said Near. "You want me to write your name in the notebook. But unless you want to die, which I doubt, then either the notebook is fake or your name or face is wrong."

"The notebook is real," said Ryuk.

"Since your face hasn't changed since the last time we met, I must assume it's your name," said Near. "And if I write and I fail, I will have no option left but to take the eyes."

"You can't," said Ryuk, chuckling darkly. "The ownership passed to _Anthony Lester_ when Matsuda gave it up."

Near stared at Matsuda, willing him to give up information, any information, that might help his position.

"I told Aizawa to arrive at three o'clock," said Matsuda, checking his watch. "It's 2:55 now."

"Lester, will you take the eyes?" asked Near. "Will you give up half your lifespan?"

"I will," said Lester, "on the condition that we burn the notebook and any extra pages you have afterwards. I will sacrifice part of my life to eradicate Kira. That was the bond I took up at the beginning of the investigation."

"Then do it," said Near quietly.

Lester looked at Ryuk and it was done.

_Dies irae, dies illa_

"_Tota Matsuda_," he read. "There was no trick."

Near knocked over his tower of Death Notes in a rage.

"Is that all you wanted?" he yelled. "To force me to accept the bargain on behalf of someone else?"

"Think what you like," said Matsuda. His face flushed with triumph.

"Then write his name down!" yelled Near to Lester. "Finish the case!"

He wrote two words. Forty seconds left.

Matsuda stood without moving.

"I think I'll write Aizawa's name in a bit," he said. "You two can live if you're so sure you defeated me."

"The name's written down," said Near, "so nothing can prevent your death. I guess that's what you wanted. You stayed home a few days ago after feeling sick, didn't you? I bet the strain is too much."

The brat grinned at him! He had given up half of his subordinate's life for nothing and he had the audacity to grin!

Thirty seconds left for Tota Matsuda.

"I'm writing his name down now," said Matsuda. Lester dropped the Death Note and drew his gun.

"Write a single word and I'll kill you like you killed Kira," he said.

"You already have," Matsuda said, distractedly checking his watch. Twenty seconds left for Tota Matsuda.

"Ryuk?" he asked. "You aren't going to write my name down too, are you?"

"Why should I?" asked Ryuk. "It's already done. You aren't the owner any more. It's been interesting, Matsuda."

"Thank you," said Matsuda, a chill running down his spine.

Ten seconds left for Tota Matsuda.

"I don't know why you did it," said Near, "but you've lost, whatever damage you did to Lester and me."

Five seconds!

_Solvet saeclum in favilla_

"No," said Matsuda, regaining energy. "You lost, and it's because you never thought hard enough. All the alternatives you presented were _stupid_, and you thought you were so great because you took down Kira. Wrong! Ryuk took down Kira. I took down Kira."

Lester gasped. Ryuk began to laugh uncontroallably.

"What?" asked Near. It had been forty-five seconds.

"His name and lifespan just disappeared!" said Lester, panicking. "But he's not dead!"

"All this time, you never thought that Tota Matsuda was not who he appeared to be!" Matsuda shouted. "Not once! You overlooked me! But L didn't! He saw through me at once, and he shielded me from Kira until the threat was past. You were not L's successor!"

He took a step closer.

"_I was_."

Lester fired his pistol at Matsuda, but it jammed. Then his eyes widened, and he slumped to the ground with a gasp. Near looked at him in alarm.

"You humiliated Light Yagami only because he was too arrogant to double-check his plan and because one of his underlings made a mistake. And you thought you surpassed L for it. I swore to revenge his defeat, but how should I do that?" Matsuda monologued, enjoying it. "The cruelest thing to do, I thought, was to give you the taste of victory at the cost of great sacrifice and then take it away. That's what you did to Light, as I recall."

"Lester! Get up . . ." mumbled Near, hunching over more than usual. "Don't let him win . . . "

"You're still a kid," said Matsuda. "You were never ready. You never surpassed L."

"No . . . " said Near, shaking his head. "No!"

"Light Yagami died alone, all of his friends turned against him, and with no way to prevent one arrogant brat from monologuing his ears off. He died powerless. But with you, I thought the only way to top it was for you to experience the hope of gaining that power."

He had been pacing as he monologued. Now he reached down and picked up the Death Note.

"Here it is, Near," he said.

Near looked up, his face betraying hurt and rage. Ryuk laughed.

Matsuda kicked Lester's pen over to the defeated boy. "And here's a pen for you."

Near picked it up, trembling. Matsuda tossed the Death Note on the floor.

"Come get it," he said, grinning. "Fetch."

Near crawled over to the book. As he reached out for it, Matsuda drew his gun and fired into the boy's hand. Near screamed.

"That happened to Light Yagami, as you recall," said Matsuda, picking up the notebook and walking away from Near.

"You . . . you murderer!" wept Near, cradling his hand and getting blood all over his shirt.

Matsuda had timed Aizawa's coming so that he might walk in on this exact scene. And sure enough, he heard footsteps running in from the North entrance. Aizawa would enter behind his back.

"What is this?" shouted Aizawa as he ran in, looking at Lester's body and Near's crumpled form.

"Surprise!" shouted Matsuda as he whirled and fired, cruelty in his face and his voice. Aizawa slammed against the wall of fake Death Notes, sliding down with his face fixed in terminal surprise, his hand on his pistol.

_Teste David cum Sibylla!_

"That was your last hope, Near!" said Matsuda, smiling Kira's smile. "How do you feel?"

Near opened the nearest Death Note copy and wrote _Tota Matsuda_ in it. Then he crawled over to another one and did the same. Then a third, a fourth.

"Wrong notebook, Near," said Matsuda. "And by the way, Matsuda isn't my name."

He put his hand up to his face and tugged. The flesh mask he had worn for so many years came off.

"I was never in any real danger, it turns out," he said. "Originally, I was working for a government agency so secret that only three people outside of it heard rumors of its existence. Then this whole Kira business started and, laughably, we lost so many members that we had to disband. This whole 'one world, under Kira' idea worked well for us anyways."

Near, sobbing, crawled over to another notebook, his injured hand still held against his chest, refusing to look at Matsuda's face, to see the face that defeated him. Ryuk laughed.

" 'Tota Matsuda' was an actual citizen of Japan, whom we tracked for his last two years in college and then replaced with myself. He had his memory wiped and was deported to a holding camp in northern Siberia the day I came in. Oh, don't make that face," said Matsuda as Near's expression convulsed in rage, "It's indoors. He's living a king's life right now."

Ryuk laughed harder.

"Turns out, if you look at a picture of someone when you have the Shinigami eyes, you can see their name and lifespan. Well, since I was wearing Matsuda's face at the time, anyone with the eyes or any nosy Shinigami were fooled."

Near collapsed, moaning.

"Is the pain too much for you to take?" asked Matsuda. "Well, I guess you know how I beat you now. This is the end, squirt."

Near made one last effort to look at Matsuda, tears running down his face and his eyes wishing Matsuda death.

"I gave you one honor – I didn't write your name in the Note," said Matsuda, grinning. "But have fun."

He turned and wrenched fake Death Notes from the pile until it collapsed, knocking over more and more of the pile until it fell on Near, who gave one last scream at the fake notebooks rained down on him.

"I expect your legs are broken," said Matsuda, holding the real notebook in his hands. Ryuk floated over to his side, laughing.

"Go . . . to . . . hell . . . " said Near.

"I expect there isn't one," said Matsuda. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cheap lighter.

"Remember this?" he asked, waving it in front of Near's face. "This won't be the first time I've burned a copy of the Note."

Near made no response.

"I can't help it now," he said. "You've gone and written my name all over the place. Well, not _my_ name."

He opened the lighter, staring into the flame for a moment before turning his eyes back to the ground, to Near's broken body.

"Oh, and I'd just thought I'd tell you: I paid for all this with your money."

Near began to cry. Matsuda dropped the lighter on a nearby stack of books and turned away.

"Nate River . . . " he said. "You lose."

He walked away. Ryuk laughed.

* * *

Light's mistake had been slipping into complacency once his biggest opponent had been crushed. Matsuda (he had grown used to the name by now, no sense changing anything) would keep a wary lookout for anyone trying to take down Kira. And thanks to Light's groundwork, it would be easy going. The world was used to its shape under Kira, and it would spring back with little pressure.

Matsuda looked at his pen, then sat down to write. The TV station provided him with names and faces.

Judgement was carried out.

"Say, Matsuda, you sure you should be using the Death Note?" asked Ryuk. "After all, you were definitely getting sick back there."

"Power is intoxicating," said Matsuda equivocally. "But I will stay the course."

After a moment of thought, he put down the pen and stared thoughtfully at it.

"I'm going for a walk," he said.

"Are you going to keep writing when you get back?" asked Ryuk.

He stood for a while, lost in thought.

He had defeated Nate River. But Nate River was only a child. Could he handle the awful power he was in control of?

But Light had stayed true to his goal. Was it not best to continue his vision?

He turned to Ryuk and grinned.

"I might. For now, let's go buy some apples."

_The End._

_

* * *

_

_Thus concludes the epic saga. I don't care if it's over, though - you still have to write me lots of reviews. _

_In case anyone was wondering about the Latin in these...I went and found the lyrics to the anime soundtrack, specifically Track 19: Death Note Theme and Track 20: Kyrie. Adding the Latin to the prose had the same effect, I hope, as epic choral music did on the anime._

_Also, in case anyone's interested, Chapter Three and Chapter Four were going to be one section, but it got so long that I just split it up into two sections. So it's no longer a trilogy._

_This was my first fic. Hope you enjoyed it._


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